Austria says it is putting its COVID-19 vaccine mandate on ice

[March 09, 2022]  By Francois Murphy

VIENNA (Reuters) -Austria is suspending its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, its ministers for health and constitutional affairs said on Wednesday, six days before fines for breaches were due to start being handed out.

The measure has been in effect since Feb. 5, but enforcement was only due to begin on March 15.

The decision to introduce it was announced in November, before the wider emergence of the highly contagious but less severe Omicron variant in Austria. The strain on intensive-care units has since eased.

Politically, the vaccine mandate - the most sweeping measure of its kind in the European Union, applying to all adults - has become a liability for the conservative-led government and the favourite target of the far-right and anti-vaccination Freedom Party, the third-biggest in parliament.

It has done little to raise one of the lowest vaccination rates in western Europe, and scepticism around it has grown since restrictions barring the unvaccinated from places such as bars and restaurants have been scrapped in most of the country.

"We will ... suspend the vaccine mandate in accordance with the principle of proportionality," constitutional affairs minister Karoline Edtstadler told a news conference.

"Why? Because there are many convincing arguments at the moment that this infringement of fundamental rights is not justified," she added.

She said the government was following the recommendation of a panel of experts that must regularly review the public health and constitutional law aspects of the mandate and which presented its first report to the government on Tuesday.

She and Health Minister Johannes Rauch said the mandate could yet be reintroduced if a new variant made it necessary.

"Today is not the last chapter we are writing on the subject of the vaccine mandate," she said.

(Editing by Alison Williams and Jan Harvey)
 

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